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from : http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/g...re/3424/page/1

City of Heroes: Issue 16 Hands-On Preview
By MMORPG.com Staff
MMORPG.com's Carl Cascone writes this preview of Paragon Studios'
upcoming Issue 16 release for their popular superhero MMO, City of
Heroes.

City of Heroes remains the champion of character and player
customization. Players can customize their characters right down to
the levels of accessories, and with a little time and creativity,
players can create exactly the characters they envision. Whether a
player wants to play a masked crusader from the old four color days of
the Golden Age, a mage from the pages of sword and sorcery, or the
ever popular tropes from Manga and Japanese animation, the character
creator from City of Heroes can oblige. Customization is not limited
to character creation, as players can create their own canon or non-
canon related stories and missions for other players to enjoy. The
release of the long awaited Issue 16 will increase this customization
even further. Powers will now be fully customizable , and each player
will have increased control over standard City of Heroes missions.
Matt Miller (Positron) Senior Lead Designer, Bruce Harlick (Horatio)
Lead Designer, and Adam King, City of Heroes Brand Manager were kind
enough to give MMORPG.com a tour of Issue 16 Paragon City, and
showcase some of the projected new features.
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A trip through Paragon City is never complete without a visit to the
tailor, and it is here that the most impressive feature of issue 16
will be found. Though the tour took place in the tailor shop of Steel
Canyon, all options will be available upon character creation. Several
issues ago, the characters that use weapons were treated to a new
level of customization. Now all of the game's powers will receive
customizable features.

Power Customization is an elegant process of added palettes to each
power. Some powers will give the player a choice between a dark
palette or a bright palette, and some powers will have only one
palette because they are able to have a tint of color. A player does
not have to pick a trend for each power set, he can have powers within
a power set of both the bright and dark palettes. If a player is happy
with the appearance of powers from the other issues, they will simply
choose the legacy setting of the power and will not have to touch the
other palettes; it will be as if the power was never customized.

Obviously new characters do not start with every power of a given set,
but this does not mean a character has to make a trip to the tailor
every time they achieve a new power, sinking even more of their hard
earned influence. During character creation, once the powers are
chosen, the player is brought to the costume customization menu just
as before. Choosing a tab for powers will bring up a screen with tabs
already familiar from the costume customization. Here the player will
be able to choose the color scheme for each power in the character's
primary and secondary power sets that will be achieved over the
character's career.

As an example, if a player chooses to play a Fire Controller with fire
control and thermal radiation, they will be able to choose the color
scheme of the Fire Imps (pets) at character creation; long before they
will ever actually achieve the power (which is the highest level power
for that power set). The player for the Fire Controller will have
three options as follows: Legacy, which is the default and looks
exactly like the power from previous issues, Bright Fire, and Dark
Fire. Both the Bright and Dark fire palettes will allow the player to
select two colors from the diverse shades available. If a player
decided they wanted to have Earth Control instead of Fire Control,
they would find that there is only one palette available called Color
Tintable. This palette will still give the player a choice of two
shades from which to choose. Some powers will follow the trend of the
Fire Control and have the Bright or Dark palette, and some powers will
have the single Color Tintable, it all depends on the power sets that
are chosen. If down the line a player decides they want to change a
color scheme for a power, they will be able to get a power makeover at
the tailor. As always, fees will apply.

Issue 16 will also improve on the Epic Power Pools. Each archetype is
getting an additional power set in their epic power pool, and each
power set is getting an additional power so that there will be five
powers from which to choose. Using the scrapper as an example: Blaze
Mastery was a power set added to the Epic Power Pool which will
include the powers Ring of Fire, Char, Fire Blast, Melt Armor, and
Fireball. In addition the Body Mastery power set had the power
Physical Perfection added for a total of five powers.

Mission difficulty is undergoing a makeover as well in Paragon City.
Individual players now have control over what to expect in a mission.
Just as before, players will be able to choose the level difference of
critters they face (up to +4 character level), but with this issue
they can choose whether or not to fight bosses in missions.
Furthermore, they can choose whether the server assigns missions to
the character as if they a single character or more, up to treating
the character as a team of eight. All of these sliders are independent
of each other. A player can choose to have missions of up to the +4
difficulty, yet they will not give bosses. Conversely they can choose
critters of lower levels but face bosses within the mission. There is
also a choice of whether to treat Archvillains like Elite Bosses.

As a test, a Broadsword/Invulnerability scrapper was brought into a
standard mission. He faced the standard group of enemies for a solo
mission at mission difficulty +1 character level, and successfully
finished the mission. Then the difficulty slider was set to treat him
as a team of eight. The scrapper, named Duke Mournblade went into the
mission solo but faced enemies as if he was an eight man team. This
would be glorious for experience points if not for the fact that poor
Duke Mournblade could not last through the first mob of Tech ops,
Sappers, Blades of Artemis, and Hercules Titans.

The third major change in Issue 16 will be the sidekicking system.
What is being coined as SuperSidekicking will solve the problem of
lower level characters finding mentors on teams. The idea is that
Supersidekicking will allow for much more flexibility in team
building. The procedure is simple, where all characters of the team
are sidekicked to the mission character, who does not necessarily have
to be the team leader. Each character on the team will be one level
lower than the character that is performing a mission for a contact.
When higher level characters are brought to lower level missions they
will still get experience awards. Lower level characters will be able
to travel into zones from which they were previously restricted while
on the team. This supersidekicking will make it easier for characters
to find good teams without being left behind because they are either
too high or too low in level. There are tabs in the options menu which
will allow players to choose how much they are willing to be leveled
in supersidekick mode.

Architect Entertainment also will receive some improvements with Issue
16. Some AE missions will fall under the category of Developer Choice
Missions. These missions will embody those elements the developers
feel make excellent missions, and will be deemed outstanding by the
developers. In Developer Choice Missions, the players will be able to
select whether the rewards dropped are salvage and enhancements, or AE
tickets. Developers Choice Missions are always chosen by the
developers, but there is a Hall of Fame category for AE missions which
are completely player chosen. The Hall of Fame will make it much
easier for the favorite missions to be found.

The supersidekicking system will apply to all AE missions, which will
help to curb some of the abuse with XP gains for which the AE system
is famous. The developers are aware of some of the abusive power
leveling techniques used in AE missions and are taking steps to curb
them where possible and prudent.

Overall, the changes in Issue 16 are largely positive. The addition of
power customization will make the character creator capable of
exercising player's creativity even more than it had previously. The
mission difficulty will allow players to tweak how they play whether
in solo mode or team playing. Super Sidekicking is no doubt the point
in issue 16 which will have the most affect on game play, and thus far
it looks like a positive change. If these changes prove successful
Issue 16 will be a great prologue to the Going Rogue expansion.